


Hey, you've got your canon in my fanfic!

by yourlibrarian



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Fandom - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Canon - Comics, Canon - TV, Episode: s03e12 Jus In Bello, Fanfiction, Gen, Incest, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6732406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently it didn't take long for the Buffy/Satsu scene in issue #12 to get someone comparing it to fanfic.  This doesn't surprise me, because frankly that's what I thought too.  And it felt pretty strange, kind of like a "Hey! <i>You</i> don't get to play in this sandbox!" reaction.  Which is where the "circles of reality" come in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey, you've got your canon in my fanfic!

**Author's Note:**

> Originally Posted March 9, 2008

[A post by psycholibrarian](http://on-verra.livejournal.com/844.html) and the latest Buffy issue #12, started me on a train of thought about what I'd call "circles of reality." I guess this kind of has to do with sex, but mostly because it's what fan fiction is so often known for. As psycholibrarian's post discusses, when fanfic becomes the topic, slash is not far behind. Apparently it didn't take long for the Buffy/Satsu scene in issue #12 to get someone comparing it to fanfic. This doesn't surprise me, because frankly that's what I thought too. And it felt pretty strange, kind of like a "Hey! _You_ don't get to play in this sandbox!" reaction. Which is where the "circles of reality" come in.

I realized that I look at things differently depending on where they're coming from. For example, the first circle would be our personal, daily, reality (however skewed our vision of it may be). Then the second would be removed reality, such as news about events that you have not actually participated in, but which you take to have actually existed. My third circle would be mass fiction, whether that's in print, TV, whatever. (There may be even finer circles, given that a lot of people keep saying the comics are in a different sort of reality from the Buffy series. I think the argument of canon is a separate issue from its creative source but your mileage may vary). The fourth is personalized fiction, which is where I think fanfic falls. The fifth is the stuff in our heads, the imaginary realities that generally have to exist before the external fiction gets to have its day. 

If anyone's ever seen a news story on an event they attended or were connected to, you may understand what I mean when I say the clash of these realities can be disconcerting. I realized that I use these reality lenses very heavily when I read or watch something. To put it another way, I think we have different levels of suspension of disbelief. I have one level of it when I hear someone tell me a story of something that has purportedly happened, another when I'm watching a TV show, and yet another when I am reading fanfic. When it comes to fic, while I'll read both the most distant AU and the most canon-centered story, I think my preference is for fic that is just a step to the left of canon. I love those stories that explore the unfollowed suggestions a story leaves behind. 

To return to psycholibrarian's post, she mentioned how her discussion of incest in fic would not cover parent/child as she has strong negative reactions to it. I can relate because I really don't want to read it either. In some cases I don't even want to read it at a remove. For example, an awful lot of Spike/Angel fic has an incestuous relationship at its core and mines it deeply. I don't find this interesting, not only because in my view they didn't have a relationship like that, but it's just not my thing. On the other hand I'm not as put off by something that is (I'm going to guess) technical incest, such as consensual stepparent/late-teen, which seems to verge on the category of inappropriate relationships such as mentor/mentee (I actually have no idea how laws define it). My point is that I'm not sure there's any distance far enough that will allow me to read about that parent/child relationship and not have an unpleasant visceral reaction. And making that about characters I "know" is even worse. 

Of course one thing a lot of people are objecting to in the new Buffy comic is that Buffy is doing just that, having a relationship that is inappropriate due to power issues. I'm going to leave aside for the moment the many arguments about how this is either (1) ruining her character or (2) completely in line with her character. However one wants to see it (or ignore it completely) the comic just made it happen. The thing is that, while I think fanfic would explore this relationship in many different ways (and probably will) I don't see the comic as likely to do the same. And I think the fact that so many people didn't see this coming is due in part because (A) it's a facet of Buffy we hadn't known existed before, and (B) we thought we were going to get a different story. Time will tell if this plotline will end up taking us new places. I think the parallels people are pointing out between Xander/Renee and Buffy/Satsu are likely well taken. But the story we apparently won't be getting is how Buffy would deal with someone liking her who she likes and admires in return, but is not interested in _at all_. However it seems rather unsurprising to me that a male writer is not going to relate well to the rather common experience of a woman who has an admirer she doesn't want to connect with. I also think having such a storyline would be a better container for exploring how the hero worship Buffy now deals with is something she doesn't handle particularly well. Or to explore the whole idea of hero worship and the blindness inherent in it. 

Mostly, I am sorry because this is the story fanfic is _not_ likely to do. It's very rare that I've seen a piece of fanfic that is not about two characters getting together in some way (even a lot of gen is about emotional connections). I think I can remember reading only one story that centered on a character having a long-term crush on another that was never returned. In canon though we had this happen, with Xander and Buffy, and for a while with Xander and Willow. However as Xander and Willow proved, it was always possible for this story to change if one day one of the two suddenly woke up looking at the other in a different way. It's a whole lot less likely if one suddenly has to cross sexual orientation to do it, in addition to a "just not that interested." That is the stuff of which endless longing is made.

But fanfic is exactly about resolving longing for things we'll probably never see and it seems no barrier is insurmountable. Even gritty, realistic fic (which I don't see much of) is in itself still a sort of fantasy, because it's presenting characters in a situation which the canon will never place them in. The realistic trappings are simply another sort of fantasy (especially if the canon is a TV show, since they represent reality poorly). There's a certain sort of fic which does try to guess where canon is going, and is occasionally correct. But that's rare. Because even in cases where canon "goes there" (Spike and Buffy being a good example), it doesn't go there in a way that fans anticipated or wanted. Another good example is Spike and Angel. Joss has already said that he knows just what happened between them and that it's hilarious but he'll never tell. I strongly suspect most every Spangel shipper is not going to like what he has in mind, and it will resemble almost no fic that has been written on them. So in the rare cases where it actually does happen, I find it disconcerting to see canon following fic. And I'm not entirely sure I like it. I want my canon to stay canon and my fanfic to stay fanfic.

Which brings me back to SPN. It is hardly surprising to me that SPN is a hotbed of slash writing. You've got a show that centers closely on two male leads (until this season, the only expected recurring characters) who _because_ they are brothers, share a close, now approaching symbiotic, relationship and a disturbing family history which indicates that they've never fit in with "normal" society. It seems to me that part of why they are brothers is exactly so that the audience will accept that closeness without starting to wonder about their orientation -- and to shut the door on the possibility of their ever taking things further. Of course that has never stopped a fanfic writer, because fanfic is all about throwing doors open, not shutting them. If a show's premise seems to block two otherwise entirely slashable characters from being brought together, fandom will clearly leap the incest hurdle to do just that. In fact fanfic isn't just about throwing doors open, it's about blazing trails to places hardly anyone wants to go.

Which brings me back to the incest angle. For example, it would not surprise me if suddenly a whole bunch of people who had no previous interest in John/Dean began to write a story or two about it, post SPN 3.12. There's actually quite a lot in canon that could support this idea. For starters, both John and Dean have spoken openly about the inappropriate parent/child relationship they had (John in IMToD and Dean several times, most recently in Dream). Dean is protectively touchy when John is being discussed. The idea that Dean could have been treated as a partner in more ways than we've seen, means Henriksen could have been doing more than shooting in the dark. His outside view of the Winchesters may have been incomplete because he never took their motivations seriously, but he was a smart, insightful guy. He wasn't that wrong about who John was, and he wasn't that wrong about John being a rather undesirable parent. Dean's mix of hero worship and anger at his father has some perfectly clear explanations in canon, and it could also have an entirely different set of causes.

Yet I certainly don't want the show to go this route, even while I might be interested in seeing someone explore this possibility in a non-voyeuristic gen story (preferably from Sam's POV as we'd have yet another layer of removal from it). I also suspect few fanficcers _actually_ want to see Wincest made canon either, and even less do they want to confront the idea of incestuous brothers as real people. As psycholibrarian wrote: 

_No matter the fact that this still appeals to me on some deeply strange psychosexual level (and once again I point out that I am an only child!), I have to say, to be perfectly honest with myself, I would probably be pretty squicked out. Not necessarily by the sex itself, but, well..._

_Consenting, well-adjusted, or reasonably well-adjusted adults should be able to do whatever they want in their sex lives, (barring, mayhaps, uncontrolled poppin'-out of genetically fuggered-up children!), but I couldn't help but be concerned about their upbringing and wary about their resultant mental and emotional fitness._

In short, you wouldn't really want that happening, anymore than you'd really want to meet a vampire renowned for their body count, or you'd really want to hang around with an annoying self-centered character, however hilarious onscreen. Because, that's taking things a step up into a reality where you start looking at it less as a hypothetical and more as something that carries non-hypothetical consequences. Moving something from fanfic to canon may be a smaller leap, but it crosses a line to me nonetheless. Canon doesn't so much explore possibilities and hold characters up to the light to see what facets we discover (while resetting that button for each new story). Canon's more about closing off possibilities to direct a character and storyline down specific paths. 

I realize that TV shows often do a bad job of following their own canon, but when they stop caring is usually when I stop watching. So I am willing to explore a whole lot of possible stories when they occur in fanfic, and in fact really enjoy the notion of taking characters everywhere they could possibly go (even if I don't want to read every single journey). But I expect more from my canon –- I want it to make the harder choices, and give us the less cracky and self-indulgent storylines, and take the characters _at least_ as seriously as we do. It's disappointing when they're careless with those toys we love so much.


End file.
